Character development 2 Eliza

Eliza is loud bold confident glamerous everything I would like to be if I had the time and the energy and the personality....

Studies from similar characters in the paper.
Then studies from my imagination

Her feet were her weak spot so I did some practice

Then did the 360degree mock up using pastel pencils because I think they worked well for Superdad,

Finally Eliza in action....

The scanner has changed her hair colour each time!

The problem with Eliza was she was supposed to be a real, believable character not a spoof like Superdad and that gave me less to work with. Because she's so "perfect" she's boring and doesn't get up to much that I could draw. Or maybe I just didn't have the imagination/inspiration with her..

Character Development "Super Dad"

I have a problem with decision making, so give me a free choice (of characters) and I am stopped in my tracks with indecision. To break the creative block I started with Superdad who was an idea I had ages ago but never followed through.

Superdad is balding and a little overweight, he wears a white shirt and suit trousers. In my head he's always just got in from work, his briefcase is always close by. He's managed to put on a chefs stripy apron and is permanently holding a baby and/or toddler

He looks a bit neanderthal here

 studies for his face

I felt I needed to explore how he works in action so here he is in the kitchen

Needs some colour

but this looks weak. I'm not good at colour

so I tried to be bolder

and had a go with acrylics

but I think I'm better with pastel on coloured paper. It is a bit wishy-washy

though it improves with a bit of computer manipulation

Character Development

It doesn't look impressive but it's taken me ages to assemble this crowd...

Visual Distortion Part 3

I'm not really satisfied with the images so far for this project so I returned to it once more following up the newspaper cat theme. Based around the fact that the newspapers were rubbish.

I'm really not sure where this idea is going or if it still fulfils the original brief but it's here for you to consider as an idea

Visual Distortion part 2

From my ideas I think this has the most distortion

So here is my drawing

The problem is he isn't doing very much. I think of him as old and cracked so my first idea was to set him amongst younger cats.

Sorry you have to twist to view these there seems to be a bug with uploads from my phone

Or to have him as an elder mythical figure or ghost

I think the additional  characters show more distortion that the cat that I have worked up, maybe the process has made me loosen up?

Visual Distortion

I'm doing this course because the alternative is to sit at home and draw my dog and cats so I have no shortage of models. I'm interested in movement so I went for this top sketch as my original with the lower 2 being 5 lines (count them!) and one line (to loosen me up)

My problem is that I'm quite a literal person. the only way I distort things is with difficulty with a pencil so the early collages weren't really following the brief

using newspaper

with added line (not very distorted)

using coloured paper from human faces - creepy but I quite like the effect, looks a bit siamese

cutout from stripy paper

looks better with a tail, scanned from the other side and with a little paintshop modification for the colour. Problem is it still isn't distorted...

so I tried scrunched up tissue paper in an old scrapbook

which I modified with paintshop

a bit more distortion

I tried simple collage without worrying too much about colour on an old piece of paper so that I wasn't too precious about it

 I then doodled an outline with Paintshop

and twiddled with colour. The original was a flyer in the paper for holidays (I think) it looks tartan which is a very unexpected effect!

then I tried stripes of tissue paper over a rough charcoal outline. I like this!

to which you can add Paintshop colour..

or you can cut the original out and scan it with some nice coloured paper behind

to which you can add colour. (It's become a bit sterile)

A Tattoo

I have to confess that tattoo's give me the willies especially the pictures that pop up when you look in google images.

The earliest evidence of tattoos has been found on Egyptian mummies dating back to 2000 BC. Modern tattoos are created by injecting indellible ink into the dermis layer of the skin but in the past they were created by rubbing material into open wounds or hand pricking the skin to introduce dyes. Modern tattoos trace their roots to Polynesia brought back by 18th century sailors. Tattooing has become increasingly popular in the latter part of the 20th century and early 21st century due to celebrities such as David Beckham and Janis Joplin.

Mum tattoos seem to feature hearts arrows and swirly writing (ok the image in the top right isn't a tattoo but I like it)

I did some sketchbook work using a drawing pen, dip pen and paintbrush to try and generate different ideas;

I would like to use more than just lettering but I think the design has to be simple and striking to work. If it was a real tattoo it could be on display for many years. I developed the hugging theme

I like the roughness of the image
above. For me tidying it up loses
something of the energy.
The letters work best coloured I think. Actual colour depends on
who it would be worn by.





However maybe a simpler design would be more effective. When I wrote Mum beneath the cats I did

and perhaps I like this one best of all!